Hi everyone! For my Lancer, I've decided to do away with the head unit and use a carputer as the source instead.
The 2-din head unit mounting location in the dash will be used for mounting the 7" VGA touchscreen. However I have a lot of confusion pertaining to the carputer configuration itself thanks to not being so well versed with computer harware and its intricacies. Since a few fellas here have successfully built and run carputers, I hope to get some help.
The car:
Mitsubishi Lancer 2002
The reasons I want a carputer:
1. I want to be able to play lossless audio.
2. I want all my music with me. All the time. But not in bagloads of Caselogics!
3. It's just much more convenient than any standalone head unit in nearly every aspect that I can think of.
The system I plan to build on this would be:
1. Active fronts with 2 x 6" midbasses per side + 1 pair x HF drivers
2. Rear fills comprising of a stereo pair of speakers
3. Two subs
4. One 2-ch amp driving the front midbasses pairs
5. One 2-ch amp driving the front HF pair
6. One 2-ch amp driving the rear fill
7. One 2-ch amp driving the subs in bridged mode
Hence I need a multi-channel soundcard whose outputs are configurable and all sorts of features like crossover, time alignment can be used.
What I desire from the carputer:
I dont want a supercomputer. I will never use it for gaming or any other processor-intensive tasks. I will probably never use it to access the internet either. It will only be used for playing music (90%), and video (10%). So, I want something that will do this as efficiently as possible, i.e.
- Have reasonably quick startup and shutdown times.
- Should not hiccup with what I regard as rather trivial tasks, of playing music and movies, and GPS-based navigation.
- Support the 1TB of desired storage capacity in form and function both
Questions -
1. Mini Itx or Micro Itx? - I suppose Micro is significantly larger than Mini. Space is not really a concern for me, and if it means a better PC, I'm game for letting it sit in my boot. However, I think it would be awesome if I could have one compact cabinet for the MoBo, RAM etc and have another one for the HDDs, or just one compact cabinet. This could perhaps be located under the seats. Hence, which MoBo? Onboard WiFi would be a big plus. And preferably with onboard graphics. I'm not gonna hook up any fancy displays - video is very low priority. But since I will be using a primitive secondary screen for the rear (in addition to the in-dash 7" touchscreen), it would be necessary to have either composite or S-Video output.
2. Hard Drives for storage? - I need about 1TB of total storage capacity for all my music. Would like the option to be able to expand this also in the future. What HDDs should I use? Will one large regular 1TB or two be fine? I want to avoid laptop drives if possible due to high cost. Was wondering if I could cradle a couple or more of the usual, large HDDs into a useless CD Changer housing.
3. Hard Drive for OS? - Would it be of any advantage to use a Solid State Drive (say about 32GB) dedicatedly for the operating system? Will it in any way improve the boot/ shutdown times?
4. How much RAM?
5. Sound Card? - Not the device I want to skimp on. Considering the ASUS Xonar DX. Looks like the audio department in this card should suffice. The pre-out though is a measly 0.2V. The amplifiers I plan to use have an input sensitivity ranging just about down to 0.2V, so I'm hoping it shouldn't be a problem.
6. Cooling? - In Bombay, temperatures are constantly in the range of 95-100 degrees F. Would a system of this sort beat the heat?
7. DVD Drive? - Slot load DVD drive with good vibration damping available? Would like to mount one on my dash if so. Seen one from Samsung for about $90. Not sure of its shock absorbing capabilities though. Anyway, transport stability of a head unit is not required. I wont be using DVDs to watch movies/ listen to music on the go. Its just for the occassion when a friend would want to listen to a disc he/ she is carrying, and to serve as an in-car CD/ DVD ripper which will mostly be done when the car is stationary.
8. Power Supply? - DC-DC or inverter?
Feedback I have received so far for the respective queries above -
1. If I can spare the space to accomodate a Micro ITX or even ITX, I could possibly go for it. I would however like to use the most compact solution possible, without compromising on the performance department.
2. Laptop HDDs are preferred owing to lower power consumption, lesser space occupied and better shock resistance. Also, lower density drives have been advised rather than high density, single 1TB drives.
3. General opinion is against SSDs and lean more towards conventional drives.
4. Longer hibernation times with 2 GB ram, but slower overall performance with 1GB. But I wonder whether "performance" is really a concern for me for playing music!
5., 6. & 7. No feedback yet.
8. DC-DC seems to be the way to go
All inputs are welcome.